Celebration by Fern Michaels

Genre:
Fiction

Format:
Audio

Publisher:
Brilliance Audio

Release Date:
August 2008



Against everyone’s better judgment Kristine marries her high school sweetheart, Logan Kelly. They make a life for themselves with his military career and their three children. Kristine is as happy as can be until Logan’s military assignment is over and he’s coming home for the Christmas holiday. She prepares his favorite meal, gets the house ready and she waits with her children for his return. They wait, and wait, and wait some more but he never shows up.

Kristine is sure something must have happened to him, but then she learns Logan cleaned out their bank accounts (taking 8 million dollars!). Everyone around her, including her children, try to make her see Logan for what he was a cruel, abusive man. The children have the physical scars to prove it, but Kristine is blinded by her devotion for Logan. Her children move away to college and want nothing more to do with either of their parents. Kristine turns to alcohol for solace.

With the help of Woody, the handsome local banker, Kristine slowly begins to rebuild her life. She starts a career raising dogs, stops drinking and finds true love with Woody. Just as her life begins to have meaning again, in walks Logan as if his absence for the last 8 years is meaningless. He thinks he can just pick up where he left off, but Kristine isn’t having any of it.

The premise of this story sounds so good, but the main character was a big turn off for me. Kristine has no backbone and made frustrating decisions throughout the book. I listened to the audio version of this book in my car and I kept yelling at her. There was some character growth by the end of the book, but not enough for me. Logan was such a vile character and I was expecting more of a payoff to his outcome. Without giving away any plots, I was more frustrating than anything listening to this book. I used to love Fern Michaels’ books, but the last two I read really fell short for me.




Disclosure:  I took this audio out from the library.  All opinions are my own.

Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich

Genre:
Mystery, Romantic Suspense

Format:
Audio

Publisher:
Harper Audio

Release Date:
July 2006






Alex "Barney" Barnaby races to Miami Beach, Florida in search of her missing brother "Wild Bill" Barnaby. She finds herself involved in high-speed car chases and Sam Hooker, a hot NASCAR driver.

Barney discovers that her brother "borrowed" Hooker's boat and sailed away. Hooker is quite anxious to find Bill, too, and he sticks by Barney's side through her investigation.

They find themselves in more danger than they bargained for.

My thoughts...

This was okay. I didn't like it nearly as much as I like the Stephanie Plum series. There was certainly potential, but it just fell short for me. Like I said it was an "okay" read - not great, not terrible. So, so. I listened to it on the way to work and sometimes it was hard to keep my concentration on it.



2/5 kitties


For reading challenges:

Audio Reading Challenges

Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by EL James

Genre:
Erotic Romance

Format:
EBook (available in paperback also)

Publisher:
Vintage

Release Date:
April 2012







College student Anastasia Steele is asked to interview wealthy Christian Grey for the school newspaper. She has no idea how intimidating and charismatic Christian is.

Anastasia is immediately entranced and captivated by the man. Christian finds the innocent woman enchanting and wants Anastasia for his very own. She is more than happy to enter into a relationship until she learns exactly what kind of relationship Christian desires. He presents her with a contract. A contract that will give him complete control over Anastasia from the clothes she wears to the food she eats. She's shocked to discover his sexual needs include a submissive/dominant relationship including bondage and punishment. She agrees to the conditions of the contract, but it is quite difficult for her to be totally accepting when she had been a virgin and very innocent until now. It's not long before she learns of Christian's troubled past and exactly why he is this way. However, she's not sure she can be a part of his life.

My thoughts...

This was slow reading for me and I wasn't as enthralled with it as others have been. I've read erotic romance before so it didn't shock me. The subject matter wasn't the problem. I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable and that's a big thing to me. I can overcome anything if I care about the characters and I didn't feel that way with this book. I was intrigued by all the hype but this book didn't grab me. It was readable, but nothing I absolutely loved. I will read the next two books in the series, but they aren't tops on my list.

Oddly enough, this was originally written as fan fiction for the Twilight saga and I'm not a huge fan of that series either. The first two books were slow going for me and I never did go back to reading the rest of the series.

None of these books were horrible, just not for me.




For reading challenges...

EBook Reading Challenge
A to Z Reading Challenge
The Color Coded Reading Challenge
Where Are You Reading?

You Can Be Happy No Matter What: Five Principles For Keeping Life in Perspective by Dr. Richard Carlson

Genre:
Non-Fiction

Format:
Audio

Publisher:
New World Library

Release Date:
March 2003

Basically this is a self-help book which shows you how thoughts control your emotions. The premise is that if you keep negative thoughts away, you’ll be a happier person. It tries to show readers that happiness is in their own control.

While that’s true, and a lot of the information was pretty much common sense, to just put negative thoughts out of your mind, is much easier said than done. At least it is for me. There are many times when I don’t mean to think of something bad, but it works it’s way into my mind. I find myself more able to put bad things out of my mind when I keep busy doing something like reading :)

It was an interesting book to listen to in the car, though. Unfortunately, I think all the main points went out of my head as soon as the last CD was finished. I just don’t think to simply keep negative thoughts out of your head is the answer, it’s just not always able to be done. A good idea, but just too simplistic an answer for those with serious problems (not that I have really have any - I just thought the topic was an interesting one to listen to).



For reading challenge:

A to Z Reading Challenge